Coursework, 2021
This short paper explores good practice guidance on sustainable urban development . It will examine whether the Garden Town model could be reinvented with learnings from Tübingen to further its aims of creating socially, environmentally and economically sustainable communities. The German town of Tübingen seeks to restore the city’s social and economic function as an ‘integration machine’ through urban structures and municipality-led public participation. With this philosophy and method the local council has created 6 successful neighbourhoods since the 1990s (with the seventh being currently underway) and inspired planners in Europe and beyond. First, I will briefly review the literature on the transnational flow of planning (Healey, 2013; Huxley, 2013) and set out to probe how the Tübingen ‘good practice’ could be transferred to the masterplanning of Tewkesbury Garden Town (TGT) in England. Second, I will examine the two countries’ shared and diverging context of urban planning (Jacobs, 1961; Feldtkeller (ed), 2001; Hamiduddin and Gallent, 2017; Schaller, 2021) as well as the projects themselves. Third, I take a closer look at the details of the Tübingen good practice and draw out learnings for Tewkesbury in terms of planning tools, masterplan design and participation (Schaller, 2021). Fourth, I reflect on neoliberal urbanism and gentrification in Tübingen. Finally, I conclude that there is potential for the Garden Town to be reinvented but the space for experimentation is dependent on the political will created by the interplay of bottom-up citizen action and top-down planning.